Kamala Harris has what it takes to be a good president -- Trump does not

What I hope to see come out of the 2024 election is what I have wanted in every national election since the first one I remember, and that goes way back to 1964.  A path forward to better national prosperity; improved civil rights, especially for persons who are often looked at as "those others;" enhanced national security, much of that through alliances and America being perceived as a global leader in solving problems in ways that share the benefits throughout the global community; national support for and investments in scientific advancements and innovation; and international respect for America's values and integrity.  

For this year specifically I will add this:  Dramatically less divisiveness.  A more unified social and political environment where the opposing groups will disagree respectfully and without hostility.  That's one I've never had to think about before.

I do not believe these goals to be unique to me.  I think they are shared by many, and I also think that they are part of the national heritage.  For two and one half centuries, in fits and in starts, we and our predecessors have made progress on them all.

Leadership is vital

None of these aspirations can be accomplished by any one person, but leadership counts for a lot.  Whatever progress can be made in these areas depends upon whomever becomes President in January 2025.

Kamala Harris has the temperament and the vision to make progress on these goals.  Donald Trump does not -- his temperament and vision would stifle and destroy progress, not encourage and build it.  

Kamala Harris beats Donald Trump on character (she is honest, he is a liar). She is patient and optimistic where he is revanchist and hostile.

Harris will inherit a good economy and continue the policies that have made it so.  Trump inherited a good economy in 2017; he mostly didn't screw it up until the pandemic.  That's when his basic desire for chaos asserted itself, and his chaotic mismanagement laid the groundwork for supply shortages, a primary cause of inflation.

Speaking of inflation: The Inflation Reduction Act of August 2022 -- largely a string of investments in clean energy -- coincided with an annual inflation rate of 8%; too high.  It also coincided with the beginning of a precipitous drop in inflation, now down to about 2.5%.  So, perhaps not such a bad name for that legislation.

Looking forward

Looking forward, Harris will support that set of investments and those of the Infrastructure Act of 2022 so as to continue and increase their benefits.  They would be under threat of repeal or mismanagement from a Trump presidency.  In fact, Trump's plan for deportations and tariffs are a recipe for higher inflation.  Fewer workers means less production which means (once again) higher inflation; higher tariffs are the same as a national tax on consumption (again, higher inflation).  The prices of those items that are tariffed will increase, and the prices of things in which the product contains something that is subject to higher tariff will also increase.

America's prosperity is not well-spread.  Too much goes to too few at the top.  Harris will push for higher income taxes for the wealthiest and the highest earners (a potentially dis-inflationary program), as well as for big business.  Trump's record from his presidency was to dramatically reduce those tax rates, causing a major jump in the Federal debt.  

Let's get that top bracket up a lot, maybe to 50%.  It's been higher in the past and the economy kept growing and was healthy.  When it was brought way down was when we started having the ultra-high pay disparities -- we don't need the highest paid executives making hundreds of times what the typical worker makes, that's where we are now as a legacy of the much lower tax rates for the highest earners.

Harris is for the law; Trump is for the dis-order

Harris has a successful legal background, having been a district attorney and California Attorney General.  She has read and understands the Constitution, the nation's basic set of laws and order.  Trump says he will pardon the convicted insurgents from the January 6 attempt to overturn the 2020 election. . .that's anti-law and pro-disorder.

Unlike Donald Trump, Kamala Harris has never sexually assaulted someone and been found guilty in a court of law.  She has never falsified election-related financials and so been found guilty of many counts of fraud.  Folks, Trump had a jury trial.  He and his lawyers had their say on the jury selection.  In his arrogance, he did not even testify in his own defense!

She is definitely not a bully and has not called for termination of the Constitution so that she can rule without restraint, all of which are Trump positions.  Harris has not tried to force state election officials to "find" votes for her or to change state election results, something that Trump and his legal minions spent months doing in November and December of 2020.

Upon losing the election of 2020, and then being unsuccessful in his attempts to steal the election from Joe Biden, Trump absconded with boxes of classified material.  He kept them in a public bathroom.  Who knows who has seen what, thereby possibly exposing others named in those documents to harm, even death?  And then when the FBI came to investigate and reclaim the items, he obstructed lawful actions.  Not a big deal to Trump, I suppose, following his failure to live up to his oath of office on January 6, 2021.

(Oh, Trump said, Mike Pence won't disqualify the electoral votes so that I can continue being president?  And my insurgents at the Capitol say they want to hang him?  "So what?" as revealed recently by Special Counsel Jack Smith's court filing.  And let's not overlook some other parts of that work which are showing that Trump began this process before the election.)

America will look better to the rest of the world with Harris as President

With her track record as District Attorney, Attorney General and now Vice President, it is clear that Kamala Harris is offering herself up to be in service to the nation for the nation's interests, not for her own.  She has continued to make that clear during her vice-presidency and actions as presiding officer of the Senate.  

Trump with his focus on retribution and divisiveness (signs of being a sociopath) is all about doing this for himself.  Trump's presidency owed something to Russia, a hostile foreign power, and Russia's Vladimir Putin, the man who defines Russia as hostile-to-America-and-the-West-and-all-that-they-represent.  Harris helped to achieve a variety of Federal investments in infrastructure.  The best that Trump could manage was a presidency's worth of "infrastructure weeks."

The Harris campaign is one of America is good, it needs to be better, and here's how we can make that happen.  Trump's campaign, on the other hand, has degenerated into one where, for the first time in American history, he sees those who disagree with him as "enemies within" who should be prosecuted for their political positions, perhaps even beset by U.S. armed forces.

Let me say it differently:  That. Has. Never. Happened. Before. In. American. History.

Kamala Harris is not perfect.  Nobody is.  But she is a decent, caring person who is proposing a presidency that is a much better bet to reduce domestic divisiveness than is Trump's negative, hostile, disloyal to the Constitution, un-American bullying and posturing. 

Harris is thoughtful, experienced, knowledgeable and brave.  She can provide leadership to help make progress on things that matter to Americans.  Trump cannot.  He is increasingly unable to clearly articulate policy; he is often incoherent publicly and shows no ability to act otherwise within the functioning of the government.  He is unaware of proven experiences and facts, and so is without the needed knowledge to make decisions that are in the nation's best interests.  He depends upon his character of being a cowardly bully to carry him along.  This type of presidency would cause a great loss of international respect for America's reliability and integrity.

Harris will represent America to the international community as reliable and committed to values that are the legacy of more than two centuries' worth of history and progress.  Other nations will know that the United States can be trusted to continue a heritage that, for all its flaws, is much more good than otherwise.

American needs Kamala Harris and Tim Walz for President and Vice President.

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How many former U.S. Presidents want immunity from prosecution for criminal acts?

One hundred and seven justices have served on the Supreme Court of the United States prior to the current Court.  Remarkably, only this past week has it come to light that somehow, during a two century period, all 107 missed the part of the U.S. Constitution that confers absolute presidential immunity.  Can you believe that?

No, neither can I.  And that's because the Constitution does no such thing.  It has no provision for presidential immunity from prosecution for potentially criminal acts committed by a person while occupying the office of the presidency.

What we are now calling "immunity" was clearly on the minds of the members of the Constitutional convention of 1787.  A form of immunity does, in fact, appear in the Constitution, but written so that it applies only to members of Congress.  Section 6 of Article I says

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.

(The emphasis is mine.)

Article I sets forth the design and responsibilities of the two Houses of Congress.  The above passage provides members of Congress with protection against prosecution for allegedly unlawful speech uttered during Congressional session.  (This privilege "flows" to congressional aides, too.  The Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School provides an extensive background analysis of Section 6 and immunity, as well as of the entire Constitution.)

In the same way that Article I describes Congress, Article II describes the presidency and "executive power."  Nowhere in Article II does any sort of analogue to Congressional immunity appear for the benefit of the President.  I am by no means a Constitutional authority, but the plain evidence of the Constitution's own text convinces me that immunity was a consideration during the Convention, and it was purposely avoided in describing the presidency even while a limited form was written in for Congress.

History and the Declaration of Independence provide us with context for why this should be so.  In 1776, executive power and authority over the thirteen English colonies was vested in the King of Great Britain.  The Declaration sets forth the reasons for independence; the preponderance of those reasons allege criminally unlawful actions taken against the colonies by King George III.  The colonies had no legal recourse because the king was immune from prosecution for these actions. 

It makes no sense to think that distrust and fear of unrestrained executive power exhibited in the work of 1776 would have no direct influence on the writing of the Constitution in 1787.  America's "basic law," the Constitution, provides no presidential immunity.

The current SCOTUS ruling -- made by the Republican-appointed majority, with dissent only from the Democratic-appointed minority (although with potentially significant disagreement from one of the majority) -- strikes me as openly partisan because it benefits former president and convicted felon Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president in this year's election.  I see no way it benefits any other president.

(No other currently-alive former president has lobbied for immunity from criminal prosecution for acts committed while in office.  Looking back into 19th century history shows that we've had some real stinkers as president, but none who committed or attempted to commit criminal activities, with the exception of 20th century Richard Nixon.)

Trump wanted this for obvious personal gain -- prosecution of his criminal offenses in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election is probably impossible now before this year's election.  The Court's decision does nothing to rebut the facts of the cases lodged against Trump, but without trial, the benefits of judicial decisions prior to the election that would be gained by the nation's voters will be denied.

But I think the Court's decision diminishes and harms the United States another way, too.

The foundation of American global leadership and influence has been the stability of its basic law.  This has given the peoples and governments of other nations confidence in aligning themselves with American policies and values, along with supporting the American financial and industrial infrastructure that makes possible those policies and values.  It has helped to maintain confidence in the ownership of Unites States bonds, helping to keep a lid on interest rates and maintaining the U.S. dollar's "reserve currency" status. 

The stability of our legal system has provided a convincing story that our policies and values are preferable to those of others, such as China's and Russia's, because it has fostered a climate of legal fairness with an aversion to favoritism.

This decision of presidential immunity is a major departure from that heritage.  It looks like favoritism.  In doing so it weakens the American argument that our system of governance is exceptionally better than those of places such as China and Russia because it makes our leadership look more like theirs, but with more internal friction and less political, institutional and social cohesion. America's formerly solid "rule of law" now looks shaky and subject to self-serving decisions by whoever occupies the White House.  

The Republican SCOTUS majority has done something that benefits those other nations that sell themselves as more dependable environments for various partnerships; at least one of those -- Russia under Vladimir Putin -- is and has been openly hostile to the United States and our American way of life.

What happens next?

As mentioned above, the facts behind the criminal cases against Trump appear to have emerged intact.  The SCOTUS decision requires the evidence be presented in lower court to determine how they adhere to the different types of presidential actions -- and so then they are categorized as immune, not immune or perhaps quasi-immune.  The decision's writing is clumsy, vague and somewhat sloppy (like its reasoning).  

Irrespective of how they fall into the different categories, the facts show that Trump incited a violent and armed mob to attack the Capitol of the United States on January 6, 2021.  Among other criminal actions, he also is proven to have deliberately failed in his duty to ". . .preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" by spending that afternoon watching the violent, armed attack and taking no action to stop it and preserve, protect and defend those who were being attacked as they were trying to do their Constitutional duty.  

Lives were lost, and the United States of America was diminished that day.  He might now be immune from prosecution, but Donald J. Trump was the cause.

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Progress and innovation: 2023 was a very good year for Americans

2023 was a very good year.

Covid receded to the background -- it is still with us, but with fewer cases, less hospitalization, lower mortality and generally milder cases.  It's similar to flu and the common cold.  Give credit to vaccination. 

That's fine, some will say, but how about inflation?  Good point -- inflation fell off a cliff during 2023, wages went the other direction, and for those living in the United States those are great things.  

Still shocked at pandemic-era unemployment?  That's old news:  The national unemployment rate has hit the floor.  Worried that our nation is losing its scientific and technological creativity?  Read on to become convinced otherwise.

Let's look at a sampling of the year's noteworthy and perhaps overlooked accomplishments to get some idea of how good the year was and what that means for the future.

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All government:  American government worked well.  Our politics is messy and could use much more cooperation and less obstinate standing on principle getting in the way of compromise, but for the most part all levels of government did a good job of providing needed services.  

Federal, state and local governments consistently provided services such as:  Public health and safety; public education; disaster response and relief; access to public lands; national defense; foreign relations; research and development; issuing visas to tens of millions visitors; naturalizing almost one million new citizens; road work; other public infrastructure upkeep.  

FBI data show crime rates continue to decrease (near to all-time lows) and the National Retail Federation retracted its earlier assertion that organized shop-lifting was rampant and increasing.  Bear in mind that American retailers annually book more than $7000 billion ($7 trillion) in sales, so when it comes to shoplifting we are hearing about fractions of a percent of total business and no evidence of an increasing trend.

U.S. national economy:  The nation enjoys overall prosperity.  The evidence is clear.  For example:  Malls in December were packed with shoppers.  I experienced it; you probably did, too.  Respondents to multiple opinion polls done at and prior to that time revealed around 70% were positive about their financial status. 

If you followed the year's business commentary you might have noticed that much of it was  centered around the "tight labor market."  That's another way of saying that 2023 saw an increase in wages and worker incomes due in large part to historically low unemployment. Year-over-year wage growth was 4%.  Inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index ended the year at 3.2% annually based on the reading from the second half of 2023.  Post-pandemic government stimulus and policies encouraged businesses to bring people back to work (remember all the Help Wanted signs earlier in the year?) thereby creating more supply and therefore disinflation.

Unfairness and inequities still exist, but rising wages and falling inflation mean progress in a variety of ways for the future as economist Paul Krugman describes in a recent Opinion piece in The New York Times.

Physics, astronomy and overall cosmology:  With funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, scientists at NANOGrav (short for North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves) accomplished the first-ever detection of something called low-frequency gravitational waves moving through the universe.  

Why is this notable?  We have seen numerous remarkable pictures of stars, galaxies and other astronomical characters in their innumerable and gargantuan existences.  Check out NASA's web site for some great pictures from the Hubble and Webb observatories.  Those pictures have helped to confirm something that has bedeviled the cosmological scientific community for decades:  We cannot see enough stuff to account for the gravity-ordered appearances and existences of the things that we do see.  

Apparently only about 5% of whatever it is that makes up our universe is observable.  In other words, all those stars, planets, galaxies, black holes, quasars and so on can account for only 1/20th of the mass that is needed to make gravity do what it does to put all those things together.  NANOGrav is looking for the other 95%, and last year's discovery is a big step in the direction needed to figure out the other 95% of the story of how everything (ourselves included) has come to be as it is.

The human genome:  Improving our understanding of human genetics is key to the long-term development of defenses against disease and helping to make informed decisions about medical treatments.  Did you know that until last year the 20-year old human reference genome was largely based on samples from only one individual?  (I did not know this.)  The U.S. National Institutes of Health has now put together a new "pan-genome" based on sequences from 47 people; the intent is to continue expanding it to include sequences from about 700 individuals.  The prior pan-genome was largely that of European descent; the new one will overcome the limitations inherent in a single geographic origin.

Medicine and health:  Could there be a cure for cancer?  Recent research has shown that the answer to that question is now "Yes, it's likely."  Bacteria has been found in and among tumors, creating conditions promoting growth of the tumors.  Such a discovery suggests that counteracting or killing the bacteria could help to fight cancer.

Artificial intelligence:  I struggled with this one.  News about "AI" used up a lot of last year's oxygen.  (I'm using quote marks because there is not yet a convincing case for intelligence that is artificially-created by our human intelligence.)  I struggled not because this isn't important, but because I had a hard time convincing myself that the consumption of all that oxygen accomplished anything meritorious.  

Here's why it's included:  Last year's news and controversy about "AI" accomplished a level of public awareness of a potentially pervasive, commanding and influential technology that the preceding fifty years' worth of discussion had not been able to produce.  The general understanding of "AI" -- whatever it might be -- is so warped by hype and braggadocio that it begs for clarity, especially in the moral and ethical realms -- what will it be able to do?  What should it be able to do?  It will be tough going to get good and acceptable answers to those questions.

The "AI" that was introduced late in 2022 and became widely discussed during 2023 is primitive.  By relying on massive amounts of computing power it can accomplish certain well-defined tasks much faster than you or I could, but that's much like saying it can follow directions to stack blocks one atop another.  Intelligence begs for creativity and innovation -- "AI" does not now show those abilities.  Speed and precision might be astonishing, but there is no soul.  Will there be one?  Should there be one?

Let's be wary of human-corrupted "AI" tools that are used to create "deep fake" type lies, but also realize that for every such tool there's another better one that will expose the corruption underlying the manipulation of reality.  

I'm going to be optimistic and say that 2023 accomplished an important public awareness that will continue.  That is needed progress.

NASA and Taters the cat:  Cat videos are popular and entertaining.  NASA has provided us with one that is also important.  Here's why:  Exploratory data gathered by decades' worth of space-faring equipment is sent back to Earth for analysis.  The method of this sending has been and continues to be good old-fashioned radio technology.  It is pokey slow transmission requiring hours or days to send packages of data.  The use of laser technology could be from 10 to 100 times faster.  NASA prepared a video of Taters the cat, sent it (the video, not Taters) 19 million miles away from Earth, and then used a laser to transmit it back home in a fraction of the time that would have been needed by radio frequency methods.  See the video and read the NASA article here.

*

I've just scratched the surface with these brief stories.  How much of this type of news do you think is generally known?  If not much, or not enough, it's at least in part because most people most of time look to television and clickbait-infested social media and online videos for news reporting of current events. 

Too brief to provide much detail and context,  often sensational and frequently sycophantic, such mass media fire hoses are usually devoid of critical analysis.  That void is too often filled with conspiracy stories, so knowledge of accomplishments becomes a forgotten casualty in the popular consciousness.  Sycophancy and conspiracy try to poison critical analysis; taking time to learn about remarkable accomplishments is an antidote to such poison.

If you want more from elsewhere on recent accomplishments, I recommend Bill Gates' busy and interesting blog.  His thoughts on the accomplishments in 2023 and his outlook for 2024 can be found by selecting here.  Included is an expanded view of current "AI" successes as well as ideas on what it might eventually be able to do.

People understand that the future is shaped by the progress that comes from accomplishments.  The results of last year's cancer research will help to better focus this year's research; perhaps next year will see the beginnings of a cure.  Last year's wage-earner earned a wage increase that already puts her ahead of inflation, and she understands how that carries forward into the following years, while inflation declines, to her increasing long-term benefit.

One final thought:  The students I work with are well-prepared to enter the workforce.  They are graduates of public education and are thoughtful, informed, skilled and energetic.  I have no doubts about their abilities or their prospects for success and for the benefits and progress that will derive from that success.  Each year to come will produce new remarkable accomplishments.  I look forward to many new good things that will come of efforts yet to be done.

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Happy 2024!—Let’s Give a Shout Out to Technology

by Guy Heston

To celebrate the holidays we decided to treat ourselves to two nights at the Fontainebleau, the newest hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. At 63 stories it is the tallest building in Las Vegas and a swell joint that I highly recommend. It is also a decidedly high tech joint.

Being a senior, I try very hard to accommodate and appreciate new technology. When we moved from our 100 year old house where the light switches were a simple matter of up for on and down for off, I eventually learned the intricacies of our new house where the light switches (I guess I really shouldn’t call them switches), are mini-control panels, and can be remotely controlled from your phone. I have gotten used to and appreciate them.

But our room at The Fontainebleau threw me for a loop. There were control panels everywhere. I first noticed there wasn’t one of those plastic door hangers where you advise the staff you either want your room to be serviced or not. No, there was a control panel where you chose “service” or “privacy”. If you chose privacy, a little red LED light came on outside the door. So far so good and saving the planet from more plastic waste.

Then there were the control panels for the lights and drapes. Did you want all of the lights on or all of the lights off? Just the bathroom lights on? Dimmed lights? Bedside lights? The bedside control panel slightly resembled an I-Pad, and my favorite option was turn everything off so I could rest in peace. I never did figure out how to turn the bathroom lights out, so I just closed the door and tried not to feel guilty about wasting energy.

And then there were the drapes that seemed to have a mind of their own. I swear to you I did not touch anything, but twice they decided to close on their own. Luckily, I found an option on one of the control panels that had three options for the drapes—“Drapes Open,” “Drapes Closed” and “Drapes Stop”, plus the same three options for the sheers. I really wanted the drapes to stop messing with me but figured the drapes open was the better option. Viola! The drapes reopened to our view of The Strip. Twice.

And there was this little gizmo on the coffee table in the shape and approximate size of a bow tie. The Fontainebleau is bow tie themed, right down to the carpet. But as I sat there staring at it I wondered what this gizmo did. I eventually figured out each side of the bow tie had q-codes for the restaurants, bars, etc. So the days of the little printed booklet with hotel information are apparently numbered. I’ll get over it.

The high tech telephone vaguely frightened me so I just left it alone and figured if there was an emergency I could just press “O” and shout “Help!” I never did figure out how to activate the hotel internet and decided two days off the grid might be a blessing in disguise. It was.

Turns out I am not alone. Brian Merchant of The Los Angeles Times in his December 28 column, “Smart and Dumb Devices: A List of Grievances”, summarized readers’ gripes about technology. Comments were offered about Waze, Ring, keyless entry systems, self checkout and so forth.

I suspect most of the comments were from seniors.

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Why do we have all these Christmas things?

If you are anything like me you have enjoyed the sights, sounds, events and traditions of Christmas time  without giving much thought to how these things have come to be.  Let's take a few minutes to consider some of the history behind this annual festival and how it shapes today's and tomorrow's world.

Religious origins

To begin with what should be obvious:  Christmas is an English language word to denote the festival of the birth of Jesus of Bethlehem during the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus.   Other languages use other words.  Navidad is Spanish for the same event; in Italian it is Natale, German-speakers will say Weihnachten, with the French it is Noël, and there are numerous others.  Greek was widely spoken in the Empire, especially in the eastern regions where Christianity first took hold, and was a type of lingua franca for the next fifteen centuries; notably, the Greek word for savior is Khrīstos (as rendered for our contemporary English-speaking convenience).  The first reference of a Khrīstos mass occurred about one thousand years ago.  Centuries before, by the year 336 the Christian bishop in Rome had selected December 25 as the date to recognize the birth of Jesus.  No evidence -- whether secular or religious -- of the validity of that or any other date has been found. In any case, it was an inspired choice by positioning a celebration of the growing religion of Christianity near to the long-established and popular festivities of Saturnalia for the winter equinox.

Yule log

The yule log tradition dates its beginning to long-ago European cultures, probably prior to the Roman Empire.  Its origins can be found in pre-Christian festivals celebrating the winter solstice.  So, yes, it can be said to have roots in pagan culture.  As an accessory to the Medieval European Christian celebration, the yule log is traditionally a very large piece of wood placed on a hearth of suitable size, first fired on Christmas Eve and rekindled each of the twelve days of Christmas.  As the centuries passed the use of the hearth for providing warmth declined, and with that change the dragging of a large hunk of wood into the house became needlessly onerous and impractical.  However, we can thank the creativity of 18th and 19th century French bakers for the continued existence of the yule log in its contemporary form as a dessert -- the bûche de Noël.  Vive la France! Variations include the Bismarckeiche ("Bismarck oak") in Germany; the Italian tonchetto di Natale; and the Vietnamese bánh khúc cây giáng sinh ("Christmas tree log cake").

Music

Christmas music -- both sacred and secular -- is so numerous as to be beyond concise description.  However, the brief carol "Silent Night" has a particularly touching origin:  On Christmas Eve of the year 1818 the young Austrian priest Joseph Mohr realized that his church organ was likely to be unusable due to water damage from a nearby flooded river.  It was his previously-written poem that became the lyrics for Silent Night when Mohr -- a skilled player of the guitar -- asked his friend  Franz Xaver Gruber to set it to music suitable for the guitar.  Gruber quickly accomplished this for a portion of the poem and the evening service included the guitar-strumming performance.  Humble beginnings, indeed, for a piece that has been translated from the original German into at least 300 other languages, earned a UNESCO Heritage designation, and can be found in a heavy metal arrangement.

Christmas tree

Honors are due to the peoples of Germany for creating the Christmas tree (although Latvia and Estonia both claim to have been first in this event).  Strasbourg -- now in France, but then in Germany -- is mentioned as introducing fir trees decorated with apples by 1605, and its Cathedral likely had a Christmas tree in 1539.  In 1554 the nearby city of Freiburg prohibited the felling of trees for Christmas uses because the practice had become so pervasive.  A Silesian duchess is known to have placed candles on Christmas trees in 1611.  The custom of using greens, such as tree branches, to decorate for various holidays was already common in Germany and other parts of Europe; expanding to the once-a-year use of an entire tree was probably an easy development for some folks.  But the use of Christmas trees spread slowly.  England and its American colonies delayed in adopting the Christmas tree practice.  It was not until 1840 that Prince Albert (originally from Germany) and Queen Victoria popularized the idea of having a Christmas tree.  It caught on in Britain and easily spread to the United States.

Those quirky and influential English

Long before the time of Victoria and Albert the English were remarkable for the extravagance and lengthiness of their Christmas celebrations.  In the centuries following the Norman conquest of 1066 those who were wealthy and fortunate hosted feasts and celebrations that spanned several days around Christmas.  (The pre-conquest Saxon/Danish/Norse population was predominately Christian, but was not known to have given much thought to Christmas-time celebrations.  The renowned Saxon King Alfred the Great of Wessex was devout and pious, but suffered from serious digestive problems and probably gave little thought to hosting lavish buffets.)  English Heritage describes medieval Christmas affairs with these observations:

Medieval people really let rip with twelve full days of Christmas festivities, reaching a crescendo on 6 January, 'Twelfth Night', when presents were exchanged. . .Medieval celebrations also combined the servants-as-masters antics and gift-giving of  Roman Saturnalia with customs belonging to the midwinter feast of Yule. These included the Yule Log (kept burning throughout the season), decorating houses with evergreens and eating richly decorated boar's heads, sometimes washed down with mulled 'braggot', extra-strong ale with honey and cinnamon, spiked with brandy.

Boisterous medieval festivities were directed by a Lord of Misrule, whose word was law. The Christmas games he ordered could be rough; among the tamest was 'Hot Cockles', where blindfolded victims had to guess who'd slapped them from behind. If the guess was right, the slapper became the victim. Blending devotion with drunken partying, medieval Christmases were also important state occasions, when kings ceremonially wore their crowns at feasts and lawgivings. . .Tudor Christmases were even more full-on than medieval, but were a tad less boisterous, at least at Court. . .This was also a time for plays (like Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night'). . .

Fast-forwarding to 1645 finds England convulsed by civil war, with the Parliamentarians gaining the advantage over the royalty.  Puritans -- those who aimed to "purify" English society and religion by removing all vestiges of paganism, a portion of whom were the majority of settlers in New England -- discerned paganism in Christmas celebrations and so caused Parliament to officially declare that Christmas was not a holiday with religious services.  In 1647 Parliament banned all Christmas festivities and celebrations.  Popular feelings in favor of Christmas celebrations were supressed until 1660 when the monarchy was restored under Charles II.  The Puritanical inclination towards constant hard work and limited (or no) play was overcome by royal support of the natural human desire for occasional festivity.  King Charles is credited with reopening theaters and restarting traditions such as decorating churches with holly, sponsoring Christmas-oriented games, banquets and dances.  

Some of this seeped into Colonial America where it took root and survived the colonialist rejection of the monarchy.  Nor did it merely survive; it evolved and prospered.  Even as the English author Charles Dickens strongly influenced the development of new Christmas attitudes in Victorian culture, his popularity in America caused similar acceptance here.  The historical Saint Nicholas predates Dickens and the Victorians by many centuries, but the Saturday Evening Post and Coca-Cola images of Santa Claus and other similar manifestations of that quantum theory elf are contemporary lineal descendants of A Christmas Carol.

Both sacred and secular

These brief perspectives are inherently European and American in their heritage, and so can only acknowledge that there are also other Christmas experiences from entirely different cultures:  Shinto and Buddhist Japan, Hindu India, Catholic and Indigenous Latin America, Africa, Asia and even Orthodox Christianity.  

I think that what is common to all is this: Our own individual experiences, as well as those that are historical, show the events and activities of Christmas time as a fusion of both the sacred and the secular.  The product of that fusion is a flexible environment that helps us to communicate seasonal messaging to family and friends, provide others with some charity, enjoy the time with its frivolities and festivities and take some contentment from the hope that we each do our own little part to make the world a better place.

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Let’s Hear It for Infrastructure Maintenance!

 (By Guy Heston.)

Americans seem to take our infrastructure for granted. Turn on the faucet and here comes the water. Flick a switch and on come the lights. The gas company will make sure you are warm in the winter. We expect everything to work with nothing more to think about than paying the monthly bill, which we gripe about but pay anyway to keep the lights and heat on, and with precious little thought about what has to go on to make all of the infrastructure function.

We are making a mistake with this thought. Infrastructure requires ongoing investment and maintenance to keep everything working. It doesn’t happen magically, and if we don’t pay for it through our utility bills, taxes and programs to help those less fortunate keep the lights on, we will suffer the consequences—blackouts, worse floods and fire damage, roads in disrepair, more unhoused people because they can’t pay the bill and so forth. Yes, there will always be natural disasters such as the recent fire in Maui and Category 3 hurricane in Florida, but well built and maintained infrastructure can often greatly lessen the damage and heartbreak.

I worked in public transportation for three decades and was always amazed by elected officials’ lack of interest in infrastructure maintenance. I could always find federal grants to fund new buses, transit centers, customer amenities and the like, and it was a given that we had to have a public event to celebrate the arrival of new buses or the opening of a new transit center, where elected officials could talk about what had been accomplished for the community and show off shiny new stuff. Great photo opportunities for the press.

Maintenance of such infrastructure was another matter, and in my experience a topic that politicians found about as interesting as watching an egg boil.  When I would explain the importance of keeping up the infrastructure the taxpayers had invested in, slightly glazed eyes seemed to be the order of the day. There was even a rule (since thankfully modified), that federal transit funds could not be spent on maintenance. More than once I was told by an elected official that operational expenses for a new project was my problem, not theirs.

When each fiscal year I would draft our transit system's proposed budget, my first order of business was to talk to the maintenance staff. What do we need to keep things running? Resealed shop floors, reupholstering of bus seats, that sort of thing. Nothing sexy about it but kept things running in a good state of order. And for newly proposed capital projects I learned to ask how we were going to keep said projects well maintained. Some of them were cancelled because I didn’t get a good answer.

I was once asked to participate in a focus group on the strategic future of the California State University. The faculty members of the group, rightly so, talked about the importance of student outcomes and investing in faculty. When it came my turn to comment I said it was also important to invest in the maintenance of the 23 CSU campuses infrastructure. I proffered that we were sitting in a lovely classroom near the grassy, tree lined campus quad and that it took money to keep everything functioning so the faculty could teach and the students learn. Based on the quizzical looks I received you would have thought I had just landed from Mars. The faculty members looked at me with the interest of watching an egg boil.  I glanced at the chief facilities officer of the university who was also participating in the group and we exchanged slight smiles and kept quiet.

So here is my proposal. Let’s make our nation’s infrastructure maintenance glamorous. A newly resurfaced road with Beyonce dancing on it in a TikTok video? Barbie sitting in a bus with new seats and a refurbished engine (yes, well maintained buses are needed during an emergency evacuation)? Harry Styles showing off a new maintenance shop floor? I realize that none of this is likely to happen, but perhaps it is time to reimagine our nation’s approach to infrastructure and remind our elected officials that decide on the use of taxpayer dollars that maintenance may not be glamorous but is critical in everyday life and even more so when a natural disaster strikes. Well maintained roads, water systems, power grids,  public transit buses and the like keep our collective lives running.

Sexy, no. Needed, yes.

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Let's have more reporting on geniuses we don't know about -- we already know more than enough about the other kind

"Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration."  That's according to Thomas Edison, although he might have said 90/10 instead.  Doesn't matter.  Either way, whenever I read something about "a genius" I think of Edison's description.

Edison was a prolific inventor.  With over 1000 patents and a variety of business ventures to his name  he was widely acclaimed in his time.  For good reasons -- think, for example, of the electric light bulb -- journalists reported on him prolifically and sometimes breathlessly as his work brought benefits to the individual and the community.

Edison eventually put his attention, creativity and perspiration to work on building tools needed by the embryonic motion picture industry.  This led to his 1908 formation of the Motion Pictures Patent Company (also called the Edison Trust).  Despite the Sherman Antitrust Act, Edison was attempting to monopolize the production of motion pictures.  

The MPPC's seven year life-span was spent mostly in controversy, conflict and court.  During that time much of the industry decamped to the part of Los Angeles, California known as Hollywood as a way of  putting physical distance between themselves and the grasp of the Trust.  By the time the Trust was broken the players in motion picture production were committed to Hollywood being their base of operations. 

The genius of Edison deserves to be remembered for his positive contributions.  But genius -- especially the type described in Edison's definition -- gets nudged by unexpected events to pop up again and again, providing astonishingly satisfying end results.

Here's a reader's commentary that begins at the intersection of journalism and genius and goes from there to tell two stories that were "news" to me.  -- Garry Herron, ed.

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Dear LWC,

I don’t know about you but I am getting a little weary of hearing about Elon Musk. Yes, yes, I know, he is widely considered a genius and reportedly the richest person in the world. He upended the automobile industry, shoots rockets into space and for $44 billion now controls your ability to tweet.

Good for him, although maybe not so much for the Twitter staff members forced out. Capitalism needs investors, disrupters to shake things up and so forth. But must the media seemingly follow every minor detail of his life? Recently The Washington Post food section “Voracious” was simply gaga (sorry, Lady Gaga, I couldn’t help myself) to announce it had learned that Mr. Musk’s favorite drink is, drum roll, Diet Coke! The Post went on to treat us to a nap inducing history of Diet Coke.

Please, Washington Post, stop. What he does with Tesla, Space X and Twitter is indeed newsworthy but I suspect most of us do not care a whit whether Mr. Musk drinks Diet Coke, Pepsi or Jack Daniels whisky. Oops, I hope I didn’t give him any ideas about buying a whisky company.

I think it’s time to give a shout out to some of our perhaps under appreciated geniuses. My first nominee is Robert Kern, who passed away in November at age 96 in Waukesha, WI. Do you have a portable emergency generator in your garage? You have Mr. Kern to thank for it.

In the mid 1950’s he was working to build motors for the railway industry but lost his job because of increased competition from the quickly expanding airline industry.  He adjourned to his garage and began working on his idea to develop emergency generators. His idea evolved into Generac Corporation which to this day makes 75% of the portable generators you find at Home Depot, Lowe’s, etc. He sold the company for about $1 billion in 2006 and became a philanthropist, donating $100 million to the Mayo Clinic as an example.

Next up is Marcus Urann, a farmer in Massachusetts. If you like to serve beautifully sliced and plated jellied cranberry sauce from a can at your holiday meal, Mr. Urann deserves your thanks. In 1912 he invented it! And, frankly, I think his canned Ocean Spray tastes better than the homemade sauce I make just to show I know my way around the kitchen. It takes 15 billion cranberries a year to make the canned sauce, and here’s a shout out to whoever figured out it takes 15 billion cranberries.

If you’ve gotten this far you might be wondering who I would nominate for my third under appreciated genius.  It would be me, of course, but my spouse might disagree and I certainly don’t want to appear bitter or jealous of Mr. Musk, so I hereby withdraw my nomination.  Elon earned his fame and fortune and he and Twitter can have at it.

To be fair, I first learned the above information about Mr. Kern and Mr. Urann from the reporting of the Smithsonian Magazine and New York Times, so thanks to them. My point is there are lots of under appreciated geniuses in our midst past and present, so perhaps the media could look for more of their stories and histories and report those, and forgo reporting on Mr. Musk’s beverage preference.

Right now I’m going to go into the kitchen and pop open a Diet Coke. Whatever you do this holiday season may it involve lots of time with your loved ones and a meal that includes a delicious can of jellied cranberry sauce!

Sincerely,

Guy Heston

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Support your local social studies teachers

We ask a lot of our teachers, don't we?  Especially high school teachers.  They teach children who morph into "young adults" right before their eyes.  Questions about the studies become more profound.  Children will pester and probe with "why?"  Teenagers will start asking "why not?"  (A personal favorite, shared with my high school buddies and tolerated by an empathetic chemistry teacher who eventually clamped down when a rogue chemical experiment briefly obliterated the school's educational decorum.  The only damage was to pride, and Mr. E's disciplinary action was appropriate.  Provocative questions can take you to unexpected and enlightening places.)

I think this becomes especially challenging in social studies or civics classes.  History, governance, social structures and how accepting individual responsibilities contributes to the community are topics that are wide open for interpretations and challenges.  Those of us who found ourselves at this age during the 1960s and '70s were fond of repelling anything we considered to be intrusive by saying "Stay out of my space!"  If this reminds you of. . .you, well, good.

Public education is expected to explain why a democratic form of government provides the best living environment for the individual.  A successful democratic government responds to the will of the majority to solve social problems, maintain public safety, avoid harm, and achieve progress in making the country better in the future.  Civics and social studies courses take the lead in delivering on that learning experience.

Part of the educator's job is to inform students on how the U.S. Constitution is the basic national law for American governance.  It has been amended, interpreted, bent and massaged for over 230 years.  When this has worked well it has been due at least in part to the fact that the Constitution's authors, and the succeeding congressional representatives, presidents and federal justices, have held to a common understanding of the country's history and how that history provides guidance towards a better future.  

Now we see that recent Supreme Court decisions (and other events) illustrate a gradual but striking loss of the common understanding of American history.  I think that teen students will pick up on this and want to learn what has changed or been lost, why that has happened, and how it will affect them for the rest of their lives.  

Let's take a look at what might merit youthful attention, and conjure up some ideas on where that could lead.

This year's SCOTUS decisions encompassing abortion (also directly affecting personal privacy), gun control and religion seem to me to be intensely personal to the youth, perhaps even more so than with their elders.  The majority opinions in these decisions depend upon historical citations whose anecdotal evidence is of the sort that would be unconvincing in high school debate competitions.  (I know this from long-ago personal experience.)

It won't take much for an inquisitive civics student to dig into the recent SCOTUS decision rescinding the constitutional right for a woman to make a private decision to abort a pregnancy and find that the historical underpinnings of the decision are, at best, wobbly.  Abortion was an individual woman's private decision and part of normal life at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.  The majority professes to be guided by the original intentions of the Constitution's authors, so then why misrepresent its history?

Inquisitive students will go farther on this.  For example, if the 9th Amendment invites the discovery and adoption of individual rights beyond those already identified -- and it does -- why should a right to abortion and to the privacy of that decision not be eligible to be recognized as constitutional?  Suppose a girl asks that question and finds that the anti-abortion answer is founded on religious belief; wouldn't you expect her to counter that with "Why should somebody else's religion be imposed on me?"  I would.

Regulation of private gun ownership and of the availability of certain types of firearms is a real attention-getter for students.  Much gun-related carnage happens in places frequented by teenagers, such as schools, shopping centers and crowded events.  Teachers will be asked why semi-automatic firearms are so readily available even though they are capable of causing far more death and injury than were 18th century cannons, the possession and use of which were reserved for national defense?  Why prefer a demonstrably dangerous individual right at the expense of general public safety when there is a history of limiting the individual's right so as to provide a public benefit?

As for religion, students will learn that one of the foundational reasons for the nation was to escape the coercion and destructive conflicts of a state-sponsored religion.  A public school coach or other employee is by definition part of the state or local government.  If that employee is enabled -- as SCOTUS has now done -- to publicly display religious practices while on duty, isn't that a type of inherent state coercion, and won't it be seen by students as invading their individual space?  And what about U.S. history during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries showing a continual national trend towards the greater separation of church and state?

Yes, I'm putting ducks in a row.  But these ducks are real, not imaginary.  We all can remember enough of our youth to know that we and others around us were capable of challenging the adult status quo.  As parents and friends of parents we know that today's and tomorrow's teens are well prepared to have these discussions, and they have the intentions of doing so.

The SCOTUS decisions overviewed here result in remarkable state-enabled and state supported intrusions into a person's space around personal and private decisions, personal safety and freedom from religious coercion.  I think this will be an underlying motivation for thoughtful student confrontations with their civics and social studies teachers.

Do we want today's students to become tomorrow's engaged adults and national leaders?  We say that we do, but for that to happen teachers, parents and communities ought to be prepared to experience a type and intensity of student activism that has been seen only rarely since the civil rights and anti-war protests of the 1960s and early 1970s.

Support your local social studies teachers. They will be appreciative, the students will be better prepared to assume and fulfill adult responsibilities, and we will end up with a more successful and better democracy.

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Where Was the Celebration?

By guest author Guy Heston --

In this summer of our discontent (inflation, a new COVID variant, messed up airline schedules, etc.) I thought we actually had a great cause for optimism and celebration but didn’t take it.

On July 11 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known to us as NASA, and in cooperation with the European and Canadian space agencies, sent back the most incredible images from the James Webb Space Telescope.

The images of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 were stunning, incredible glimpses into the universe in which we reside. The White House hosted an event to unveil them. Some of the images from distant galaxies were reportedly from 4.6 billion years ago (I’ll leave it to the scientists to determine how that was figured out). You can find the images at nasa.gov.

To me this event was right up there with the USA landing Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins for the famous July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 moonwalk. It was another giant leap for mankind, viewing the awesome images from the giant mirrored observatory, and with more to come.

I can still remember sitting in our family living room watching the grainy television coverage of the Apollo 11 moonwalk, which you can also find at nasa.gov. It was a moment of great national pride and a cause for celebration. As a nation we held our heads high.

So where was the celebration with these awesome images of our universe? The mainstream media such as the New York Times and Washington Post provided the obligatory coverage and pictures, but from my perspective the coverage was more or less dropped after a couple of days and the top headlines were back to the January 6 hearings, inflation, gas prices and such. The galaxy pictures seemed like a meh moment. (I had to look this one up, too. -- ed.)

As far as I was concerned the images from the observatory were cause for a national party and dancing in the streets to celebrate what we are still capable of if we put our minds and dollars to it. Alas, if I am reading the room correctly, we are apparently not in the mood for a national party. Drat.

I made reference earlier to the July 20, 1969, moonwalk. That isn’t the only anniversary worth mentioning. On that same day in 1976 the Viking 1 landed on Mars and we were treated to wonderful images of our solar system neighbor.

We have many reasons in this summer of discontent to look down and out. Thanks to NASA for showing us how to still look up and out. Let’s celebrate!

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